page_title: List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1943–1944)
section_title: 1944
hierarchical_section_title: List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1943–1944) / 1944
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy light aircraft carrier USS Langley (CVL-27) rolling heavily during Typhoon Cobra, 18 December 1944. A battleship is steaming behind the carrier.
context_page_description: This is a list of notable accidents and incidents involving military aircraft grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred. Not all of the aircraft were in operation at the time. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances.
context_section_description: January
  Thirtieth Mitsubishi J2M2 Raiden (Thunderbolt) disintegrates over Toyohashi airfield. Cause never satisfactorily explained but believed to have been either violent engine shaking due to failed attachment point causing secondary airframe failure, or, possibly, engine cowling detaching and striking tail assembly. Both power attachment points and cowling fasteners strengthened, but Raidens continue to be lost after these modifications.
  2 January
  "Nornick, [sic] Iowa, Jan. 2 (AP) - Nine crew members of a Flying Fortress based at Sioux City, were killed when the plane crashed and burned on a farm near here late today. Persons within a radius of several miles said they saw the plane explode and crash." B-17F-40-VE, 42-6013, of the 393d CCTS, piloted by Frank R. Hilford, appears to be the airframe involved.
  2 January
  "Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 2 (AP) - Thirteen army flyers were killed today when a B-17 Flying Fortress, headed for Los Angeles from McChord field, Tacoma, Wash., exploded in flight over McClellan field and plunged 3000 feet to the ground in flames. Thousands of Sacramentans, startled by a terrific explosion, looked skyward and saw the crippled and burning four-motored bomber emerge from the overcast sky and fall. Only one member of the plane's crew of 14 escaped the flaming wreckage, parachuting to safety before the crash. He was Maj. James H. Wergen of Kingman field, Ariz., the bomber's home base. The plane went to pieces in the air as it fell, scattering a wingtip, one of its motors and other parts over a vast area. McClellan field authorities said medical officers were attempting to identify the dead, but that names would be withheld pending notification of next of kin." The B-17G was piloted by Frederick M. Klopfenstein.
  3 January
  CDR. Frank A. Erickson, U.S. Coast Guard, receives an official commendation after he pilots a Sikorsky HNS-1 helicopter with two cases of blood plasma lashed to its floats from New York City to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, for treatment of U.S. Navy crewmen of the destroyer USS Turner, which had exploded, burned, and sunk off New York harbor, this date. In this heroic deed, in violent winds and snow that grounded all other aircraft, Erickson became the first pilot in the world to fly a helicopter under such conditions as well as making the first "lifesaving flight" ever performed by a "chopper". Without the plasma, many of the severely injured survivors of the Turner would have died.
  3 January
  The crash of Cessna AT-17B Bobcat, 42-38897, c/n 3106, of the 986th SEFTS, Douglas Army Airfield, Arizona, kills Aviation Cadets Loris Gale, 20, of Walla Walla, Washington, and James C. Gallagher, 20, of Lima, Ohio. The twin-engined trainer came down three miles S of the Cochise Ranger Station, Arizona, said the Douglas Field public relations officer.
  4 January
  Boeing B-17G-10-BO Flying Fortress, 42-31257, flying in formation with other B-17s, catches fire near Alamo, Nevada, while en route between Indian Springs Army Airfield and Las Vegas Army Airfield, Nevada, and twelve of thirteen aboard bail out. One is killed when his chute fails to open in time, and one aboard the bomber dies in the crash 67 miles NNE of Las Vegas AAF. Other planes circled the spot where the plane went down and radioed the base news of the crash. "Eleven of their number were brought to the airfield hospital hospital last night (5 January), suffering from minor injuries and exposure after having spent the intervening time in heavy snow on a high mountain plateau."
  5 January
  A P-47B Thunderbolt, 41-5920, piloted by Lt. Wesley A. Murphey Jr., crashed landed in the Green Swamp in North Carolina while on the return back to Wilmington's Bluethenthal Field.  This after experiencing landing gear failure and an eventual engine fire which took out the automatic prop and pitch control.  The plane was en route to Fort Myers, Florida and had experienced a problem with a broken hinge on the right landing gear flap shortly after take off.  Lt. Murphey was able to put the plane down in the Green Swamp coming to a stop on a marsh.  Wit
caption: USS Langley (CVL-27) rolling heavily during Typhoon Cobra, 18 December 1944.
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